First Chris Christie hugs Barack Obama a couple of weeks before last November’s election, now the New Jersey governor has nothing good to say about House Republicans after they torched a vote on a bill for federal aid for his hurricane-stricken state.

Hurricane Sandy got some of the blame/credit for the results of November’s election. It could influence 2016 too.

About the blogger

Bob Collins has been with Minnesota Public Radio since 1992, emigrating to Minnesota from Massachusetts. He was senior editor of news in the ’90s, ran MPR’s political unit, created the MPR News regional website, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started the two most popular blogs in the history of MPR and every day laments that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.

NewsCut is a blog featuring observations about the news. It provides a forum for an online discussion and debate about events that might not typically make the front page. NewsCut posts are not news stories but reflections , observations, and debate.

After failing to deliver solutions to the arbitrary deadline they created for themselves, they seek to avoid a severe stock market reaction by passing — 24 hours late — a lite version of the Senate’s modest bill that buys a little more time and raises taxes only on the richest Americans.

Rather predicatably, they get slammed from both sides of the political spectrum. Worse, they leave out the Sandy relief funding the Senate overwelmingly approved.

Did anyone NOT see this coming from the plain-talking Christie? Not to mention the other lawmakers, GOP and Dem alike, whose districts suffered heavy damage by the storm.